2023 was rough! Top 10 issues in tabletop games!
The King of Average
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03.01.2024
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Great video as always, Michael. As of this year I’ve decided to never back a crowdfunded game again. I’m weary of subsidizing development by paying good $ and then waiting 3-5 years to get a product – or not. I’m just going to wait until the game comes out and get it then via a 2nd printing if it’s good which always happens or pick it up on the secondary market for the same and prolly less.
Need to get the woke people out of tabletop gaming. They just make everything worse. Look no further than movies, comics, shows, etc. They ruin anything they touch.
Into the Unknown simply posted what Jessie wrote, I cannot see their fault, imho it‘s all about the Quack.
If I remembered it right, Jessie also mentioned, that je has already produced but non yet released vids with negative content about ATO and will release them, if they don’t come to contract with them. Furthermore Quack released the vids at a time when Into the Unknown was just about to start their reprint campaign.
Jessie claimed he didn’t know… yeah… sure…
It's not just the board gaming community, it's our whole time we live in, everyone is an *sshole to each other. I never understood and won't accept the craze about as one example, the kickstarter only stuff, especially when they are game breaking or make the game less replayable if you don't own it. Have KS exclusive stuff only bling then I'm fine with it, but don't break a game because you want more money. Companies should look for MOBA-s (multiplayer online battle arena) business plans: Hwere do they make their moneys? BLING ONLY. I dont care if my character looks X, but 99% of ppl do. Is it game changing / breaking to look like X? Hell no, it's only…. BLING.
Silver Coin: Age of the Monster Hunters is going to disappoint you lol. i would be stunned if it delivers. theyre basically silent, say theyll do things like post videos on gameplay then dont, show no progress, and have delayed the game a year out already. small team, new to the space, and doesnt look like its going well. hopefully they deliver and the game is great but i have little hope.
I'm not a lawyer, but what KS does seems to border on being an accomplice to fraud. Okay, if a developer commits fraud and KS never "investigated" them, that's one thing, but for KS to be notified, conduct an "investigation," and then say it is okay, is essentially supporting the people conducting the scam. Sure, KS is not a "store," and they connect developers with backers (for a hefty fee), but to say they "investigated" the situation and found no problem is being an accomplice to the act. I'm kind of surprised that a class-action suit has not been raised against KS in all this time. I lost money (i.e., was scammed) with an adjustable desk through KS back at the beginning of the Pandemic. It made me more cautious. I would prefer to NOT use KS because of their attitude, but would love to see someone(s) take them to court for their part in fraud/scamming.
The into the inknow/quackalope thing was bad on all fronts and does open peoples eyes thst you need to watch about money changing hands. That content creators need to disclose when they are being paid for a review. The worst out of it in my opinion was everything into the unknown did in that situation claiming they were being blackmailed. Then watching so many others in the industry flocking to that statement in support of the company. It really shows where content creators and board game companies fall on that issue. Absolutely ridiculous on all fronts. As you said, things like this hurt the industry as a whole, some more than others
On the GENCON items, i think there is a huge problem with conventions in general. Organizer and convention staff MUST do better than they are currently. We will never see conpanies just stop doing exclusive promos or convention only exclusive things. It won't happen. Conventions Organizers and Staff members must do better.
Mythic should definitely be on n1. They even said that first wave without contribution was going to be made, I paid well after the ransom and got my game from the warehouse. Yet they are asking more money for "wave 1 shipping and production" even though we all know it's just sitting in a warehouse. Scammers²
For me, VAT and shipping cost has broken the camels back this year.
I've almost stopped backing things, because while the prices seem good, and games always claim that they're under msrp, ultimately with VAT and shipping factored in, most games are way more expensive. Factor in the chance that I might not even receive the games, I'm starting to prefer retail…
This is why asking questions is so crucial that Yarro Games and other bans. Backers have such little recourse if things go south.
Good to know regarding Kickstarter vs Gamefound/ Backerkit. I’ve noticed this year some big publishers completely migrated to these alternatives
Kickstarter is a risk, its a gamble. Sometimes your gonna lose. Losing doesn't always mean the product sucks – sometimes it means there is no product. I've got a serious case of schadenfreude when i hear people complaining of their Kickstarter fails haha hilarious!
I'm happy about the Freebooter's Fate Stuff in the Background. Such a nice Game!
16:25 how much did star citizen scam out of people?
I think the biggest mistake WotC made was going after the community content creators with their attempt at the OGL rewrite. It effectively targeted some of the most popular shows to even be on youtube like Critical Role, shows that have brought countless millions of dollars to WotC. To make it worse, they were offering nothing in return. It would have been one thing to say "we are hiring the Critical Role cast to create official WotC content" but no instead they just wanted to get a cut of the profit without doing anything.
What shirt are you wearing in this video? Trying to find it on the store.
Agile methodology?… LOL.
There is a lot to blame Mythic for sure, but also Kickstarter for continuing to allow Mythic, Toyzzo, Grimlord, Blacklist, etc. Stop supporting Kickstarter! Stop backing games on Kickstarter! Back the games in the PM if you want to support a crowdfunded project.
With the Quackalope thing you didn't touch on is that that $7500 doesn't actually work out very big. Their emails said they'd put in 50 hours of playtime and editing and were going to do similar for the media coverage. Split that out between 4 people plus editing time and it's not much at all really. Like $30 ish an hour. It really was not extortionary at all when you do the math.
I am a victim of Mythic with 6 siege and not paid 2 third of the original amount. That really is where i started not wanting to back anything anymore. The Portal and Robinson Crusoe and the communication or lack there of. And Atlantis rising not delivering 2 years later. So i made up my mind to not back anything anymore 'cause i pay good amount of money 2 or 3 years in advance and stores get the game what 1 month later with everything that we back minus delivery cost. What was the last straw, delivery cost for vagrantsong in Canada was ridiculous. I still do have some on the way. 10 actually. once that has cleared i'm done. i'll make my purchase in store and if the games don't fund anymore at least i will not have lost money.
Some big ones this year for sure. And the stuff with mythic for me definitely has been a huge part in me cutting back on kickstarter. That and having a few personal duds
Gen con wanted to know my residence history, lol one of the first jobs that I quit during orientation.. still get the onboarding email daily 😂
Yup normal companies will use devops or waterfall or agile etc. Agile I have found goes poorly in most instances due to tight time frames
I was never a big Quack fan. His presentation does not usually work for me but I always appreciated how thoughtful and introspective the guy tried to be. Feel like he learned from the experience and Into The Unknown doesn't seem to recognize they contributed to the problem.
I have certainly cooled on crowdfunding since the Mythic debacle. Right now it is looking like Iceborne will be my last campaign. But I was becoming disenchanted before then.
It isn't a preorder everyone should certainly know that by now but companies treat it as such and treat backers solely as people who preordered. We should be looking for companies to do better and drop those that don't. If we are backing a project we should get some transparency on said project.
Quackalope doesn't read rule books? I'm happy I don't watch him. If he can't take the hour or less to read a book what's the point of him. I can understand needing help to learn something or if something doesn't make sense but just to only have someone teach you, well ill make sure who teaches me is someone who reads it. Good work like always. You are one of the few boardgame people I watch.
Love Aeon Tresspass and Into the Unknown. I'm glad they managed to find as much success as they did despite the malicious intent of a content creator.
Stop blaming WOTC for the sins of HASBRO! I am so tired of people shouting down the wotc devs because of something the execs at hasbro did.
I looked on Quakalopes channel and it seems Jesse is either taking a long break from the channel or has given up.
I also went back and looked at everything that occurred at the time and have an opinion on it (7 months just flew by)
I think initially when Jesse received ATO, he was like a kid opening a present at Christmas and made a rave pre-view video of the game. Then as he got into the game more realised that it was much more complex, management heavy than he had initially thought, this is a complaint I hear about ATO a lot from board game channels, I am more or less all in with this as I love the theme and these types of games, but I do have the core box and if I am honest I do feel intimidated by the game, the reason we haven't tabled it yet, is because I am waiting for a game table, so we have the room to actually play it, for which is another comment I hear a lot, that its a table hog with long up and down times switching between combat and story, which can happen a lot as well.
I think Jesse eventually let his frustrations get the better of him and he made some not so enthusiastic videos , some of which felt pretty damning.
So we get to the correspondence sent between quakalope and ITU. These are the impressions I get from them.
Quakalope. (and I am paraphrasing here)
We have made some videos about ATO and we found the game hard going and to be honest frustrating, we are willing to re shoot them, but as we have poured so much effort into the current video's we are not willing to redo them for nothing and we need someone to guide us through playthrough's so we get things right so its fair for you but we also don't end up looking stupid.
We need someone to either live stream with us, but we would prefer someone to actually be in the studio to play through with us on the video.
If we can't reach an agreement, then were just going to release the stuff as we have as we just don't want to put anymore time into it, without it being worth our while.
So a few points of my thoughts.
1. Its not unreasonable to ask for at least someone from the company who know's the rules to guide through playthrough, via live stream, but its cooler to actually have them in the studio, this to me was not a demand, but a reasonable request to at least have someone chip in through a live stream.
2. It is not unreasonable to ask for money, I don't know the inner workings of these companies, but I would somehow as someone who is very deep into backing this and Herakles a bit uncomfortable having ITU invest heavy amounts of money into promotion, when it could be used for the development, however I get that they need to promote the game, especially since you can late pledge on Gamefound and potentially could pull more backers in.
3. Quakalope felt they had spent enough time praising/criticizing this game, and were not willing to carry on reviewing/previewing it, without the financial backing or the guidance from ITU, and you know what, were just release what we have and be damned.
ITU (paraphrasing again).
We are willing to work around payment (negotiate)
were not sending someone halfway around the world on an all expense paid for trip (I get that) and wont do live stream (language barrier)
We are more interested in promoting Herakles than ATO as Herakles is our newest venture, but we look forward to hearing your thoughts on ATO.
My thoughts.
1. They were willing to pay, but negotiate (nothing wrong here) except they were willing to pay and called the negotiation a 'nothing we couldn't work with'
2. They were not willing to send someone, I get this as it would be another extremely expensive investment, but the live stream part I don't; surely someone at ITU can speak English, I mean they can correspond through emails and convert the game into English?, am I missing something here?.
3. The are not willing to pay for ATO promotion as this is a reprint but Herakles is their newest venture.
My conclusion
Part of the problem with the internet is that people expect things for free, this was not the case before as people bought magazines (Lets not forget going to the cinema buying DVD and CD's for other entertainment, getting it for free was called piracy back then) to get reviews and pre views, I certainly would not expect any channel to work for free, yes I know you get paid subscriptions (like you did with magazines) and that you get promotional adverts, but you can view these videos for nothing more than being inconvenienced by adverts and a few minutes of promotional stuff if your not willing to pay as a supporter. The model for revenue has changed dramatically for providers of these channels since the days before the internet was in everyone's household (and being Gen X I remember those days well, and sometimes miss it).
So no I don't think quakalope did anything wrong in asking for these videos to be paid for ventures, nor did he make any unreasonable requests. And I don't think ITU was wrong to say, thanks but no thanks, maybe for Herakles we can work something out.
I think the problems lay in delayed and mixed understanding's of the of the emails on both sides of the table. I do think that paid promotions are on a bit of shaky ground when it comes to bought integrity, however; how the hell is this going to be worth anyone's time (YouTube channel) to do it as a business venture in terms of actually trying to earn a living from doing it full time!.
I do think that Quakalope messed up big time by releasing those videos after the unboxing as it sent out mixed messages and could be perceived in a bad light, and the emails could certainly suggest that some manipulation was a-foot. It depends on if you want to look at it in a pessimistic way or more positive way. I also do think that when ITU saw those videos it then dawned on them what the repercussions actually were and re acted to it in a way through the emails that they perceived it.
I don't think Quakalope made those videos intentionally to 'destroy' ITU and ATO, I just think he was far to emotional and at that point felt he didn't want to waste 50+ hours of filming, its easy for me to say he should not have released them at all, as I am not the one investing my time and effort into these kinds of videos.
I think Jesse should move on from it, stop making 10 minute videos apologizing and carry on. And take away any lessons he has learned from this.
What I do think Jesse is guilty of, is the click bait thumbnails, I get it, it gets loads more views than one that just straight tells you what the video is, part of the problem also lies with the viewers (myself included), for clicking on them.
And for being too emotional when he reviews and what I mean by this, is I think hes the sort of person that is compulsive, he will get a game, which he likes the minis, theme and art work and run with it and clouding his judgement of the actual game, but then board games are like music and art being subjective. I would name a game where I found he has been way over enthusiastic about it, but in reality I found it just was not as good as he made it out to be, but I wont.
And no one really want's to see videos about someone's personal life, unless they were just someone documenting their person life and nothing else (you have people who like to view that sort of stuff),
Anyway if you have read this far, I am sorry for rambling, but wanted to put down my thoughts on this chapter.
Issue for 2024…LMS forcing non EU backers to pay VAT in a lame excuse for making it “cheaper on shipping”. Also, read the official LMS response to a question on GF regarding this…unprofessional at best, laughable at worst…
It's not quite a burnup chart, but Ascendancy's updates track their progress quite well if you wanna check em out?
I would also love your opinion on 'Crossroads Inn: the innkeeper's creed' on KS if you have some time. Updates seem kinda bs and full of hot air, they've downgraded stretch goals that were reached, downgraded add-ons included in the higher pledge tier, but their (Klabater) social media seems to indicate their video games are pumping. Did they use the KS boardgame to fund their computer games?
As an IT Service Management specialist I play board games to escape from having to hear about Agile methodologies! I feel betrayed xD
Mythic really bums me tf out. The fact I won't get my expansions, that I paid for, because they want to random stuff AGAIN is wild to me. The list for refunds is like a year+ long so I'll never get anything from my backing.